Tube Relief: Post-event meet up

We met up at The George on the corner of Mortimer Street and Great Portland Street. It is about one minute away from Oxford Circus tube station.

Actually both of us met Geoff, Neil, Annie and Helene at the Starbucks in Borders book store on Oxford Street. Small world. I do not read The Economist by the way.






David, Ric and Jen doing the Met flat-top and Picca round-top!


To be ebayed...


Euston station polaroids


New Orleans Police Captain Tami!


The buffet!




Statto and Tami!


Jen, Norman and I




Billy (cowfish)


Geoff and Neil.


Tami and our youngest challenger, 14 years old John!






Chris, Sam and Steve. Sam managed to collect £1500 for Tube Relief. Well done! Chris also won an award for best injury. He was taking a picture when the famous London Underground sliding doors smacked his face!


Norman, our producer!




Helene, part of the support team at Euston who gave us a ride home to Ealing from Upminster. Cheers!


Stephen the official photographer of Tube Relief.


Mecca! Buy her book!




Tami again!

That's it! Well done everyone!

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Post-event thoughts: We both had a wonderful time during Tube Relief Challenge and the post-event meet up at The George. I can honestly say that I will be doing this again. Jenni's not too sure but I will try to change her mind. We need to do all 274 stations next year!

I am still a little too tired to write up Thursday's report. I will leave that to Jenni.

BTW, next time I am in Malaysia I will do the whole KL metro system.

Tube Relief: Media whore (II)

Follow up to this, Ealing Times (25 August 2005 - page 7) has published a newspiece on my (then) Tube Relief attempt. There is a picture of me on it, but it is horrid! I won't publish it here (though it is available online somewhere else).



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On other news... I so want this. It may be ugly like the Eten M500 but the specs is great. Dissapointed by the QVGA screen though. If the Nokia N90 can have a 352x416 pixel screen I can't see why this, with its bigger screen, couldn't have a larger resolution.

Just a few more days to go before I can upgrade my mobile! Should I just get the o2 XDA IIs or wait for the HTC Universal?

Film Review: Crash

*possible spoilers ahead*

Came back from the local theater and just watched Crash. The numerous posters of Crash on the tube network finally got to me as did Annie's review.

You think you know who you are. You have no idea.

The narrative follows different sets of groups and attempts to connect the individuals in these groups with others for 24 hours in modern L.A. Get it? Good. Now moving on...

Crash attempts to explore the inner thoughts of us human beings - that there is good and bad in all of us. No matter how liberal you think you may be, you would probably harbour a slight negative stereotyping on certain people.

There is the black detective and his thieving brother (and his theorist crime buddy); district attorney and his racist and posh wife; a racist cop and an idealistic liberal partner, a Hispanic locksmith; a black producer, who has an identity crisis on how blacks are supposed to act and a Persian whose shop got thrashed.

Reading some of the reviews in the papers, racism seems to be considered to be the topic of this film. That is a simple way of putting it really but it isn't 100% accurate. But I ain't going to get into the whole debate about the difference between racism and stereotyping, at least not today (too tired!).

Also the topic of racism/stereotyping isn't a big deal. in America - it probably is. (I have been to L.A. only once and found the people wonderful) Living in London I never notice these thing even though I am a Malaysian. Perhaps the numerous viewing of British comedy got into me. I don't know. But it isn't a subject I really care about - perhaps Daily Mail readers would.

While the film explores the subjects of racism and bigotry there are a couple of funny moments:

Kim Lee: Choi Jin Koh! Choi Jin Koh! Choi Jin Koh! Choi Jin Koh!
Nurse: Do you speak English?
Kim Lee: I'm speaking English you stupid cow, my husband name Choi-Jin-Koh.

Performance wise it is okay. I think great acting by Matt Dillon, Ryan Philleppe and Don Cheadle. You won't see much acting by Brendan Fraser (he should stick to comedies) or Sandra Bullocks - but that is probably expected as both are in complete reversal of their usual stuff.

Crash isn't 'moving' as say...21 Grams. Sure in this day and age of Hollywood PC, political incorrectness films should be welcomed. But intelligent script can't save an average plot. Impact wasn't there in the faces of white, black, asian, middle-eastern and oriental people, as we filled out of the theater.

But it was good for what it was. The hype can be distracting, so ignore the 'intelligent message' that the filmmakers are trying to say and enjoy the film.

Tube Relief: Headache!

Woke up after a ten hour sleep. Trying to nurse a large headache now!

Uploaded some pictures onto flickr. Check it out.

Jon's Flickr
Jenni's Flickr



plus others:

Tube Relief Flickr group

Media coverage:

BBC News!

Blogger.com seems to be defective right now. Bummer.

More later.

Tube Relief blog (plus loads of pictures):

Going Underground

Nice one, Annie!

Dammit, I am fat. Must. Diet. Right. Now!

Tube Relief: Am back

Just got back from Upminster. Thanks to Helene for letting us hitch a ride back to Ealing.

5am Amersham. 1am Upminster.

It has been a long day. Will blog about it once I recover.

But just to let you know - we did not manage to visit every single tube station. :(

We did manage around 250 stations but due to a combination of bad lucks (suspensions, delays), lack of proper planning and incompetence (in my part!) etc. some routes had to be cut off to make time for Upminster. (eg. Piccadilly Line route to Heathrow)

Night!

Tube Relief

It is 2.40am and I have been awake for 30 minutes now. Less than two hours of sleep and a cold shower later I am feeling a little bit groggy about what is going to happen in the next 24 hours.

Yes it is Tube Relief 2005 day today.

In less than three hours time we will be meeting at Amersham tube station to begin our twenty hour journey around the underground in our grave attempt to visit every. single. tube. station.

Around 260 of them on a distance of 400 kilometres.

*Yawn* Shit. I am still so tired. I do not know how I am going to get through this, but getting through this I will.

We did not meet up at the pub at Amersham. Because of the rain Jenni had to nurse a cold due to her queuing outside the French Embassy during the downpour.

Annie Mole has pictures up from the pub meeting by the way.

If you see us today do give us a wave. We will be carrying ruck sacks so if you spot two orientals carrying these:



...do not be afraid. :)

As you can see, we will be mostly carrying snacks, drinks, maps and pieces of papers. London's pick-pocketers should be warned that there is nothing of value to be found in the bags. At all.

You can read the official blog at Going Underground.

Tube Relief: Under-18?

This will be the first of a series of Tube Relief related blog posts over the next few days. Just bear with me yeah?

Today we were at Safeways, stocking up on supplies for the big event. We decided to get bottles of mineral water as well as caffeine free energy drinks. There were no caffeine free drinks by Red Bull so we decided on Purdeys.

We went to pay at the cashiers. And she asked for an ID card to proof our age! We didn't have any ID cards that has our age printed - plus we were both twenty something (plus I did not shave for a few days)! I asked her for the reason and she mumbled on something about Purdeys contains 'multivitamins'. What?

Multivitamins. Under-18? What the fuck is going on? Since when do we need to proof we are over 18 to buy a multivitamin energy releasing drink?

My credit cards were not accepted as proof of over-18 age which is weird because only people above 18 can be issued with credit cards. With reasoning (plus Jenni pointed out that her student card with the words 'phd student' meant that she has to be over 20) she finally relented.

Crazy. People always comment on how I look older than my age (I look 30) but this is the second time in four years that someone has challenged me for an age bearing ID card (the first was at HMV when purchasing an '18' certificate DVD). Even bizarrely, when I was under-18 and studying in the Midlands I was never challenged to proof my age to the point of being able to obtain a mobile phone contract when I was 17. Weird innit?

BTW, I checked my stats for Sunday and over 400 new visitors came here on that day due to my 'Furong Jie Jie' post. Why is that?

Tube Relief / Notting Hill Carnival

Tube Relief is almost here. It will be all over by Saturday. Pictures will start pouring in, probably tonight from our pub meeting.

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Also this year's Notting Hill Carnival will start on Sunday through bank holiday Monday. Queensway station on the Central Line is still close, so plan your route early! Do not fucking drive!

The noise level is pretty darn high so it is probably advisable to bring ear plugs if you are not sensitive to festival level decibels. There will be a couple of geezers trying to sell you whistles - get them early on if you want to, these guys will try to rip you off. Same goes with fags.

Nothing can be done about pricey food and drinks. But there are many pubs surrounding the carnival route.


Notting Hill Carnival 2003

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I am feeling a little morose.